


Vampires and Vigilantes

by Eledhwen



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Karen is an ace investigator, Unexpected friendships, i don't know where this came from
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-11-04 00:25:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17888015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eledhwen/pseuds/Eledhwen
Summary: She’s about to do the usual “don’t worry, it’s fine, go home” routine with the girl when her stake is sent spinning out of her hand and there is another figure in the alleyway. Buffy doesn’t have time to think; she blocks a punch, ducks a kick and lands a blow of her own.An unexpected meeting brings an unexpected alliance as Slayer meets Devil, and vampires meet a vigilante.





	Vampires and Vigilantes

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still not sure where this idea came from, but it kept on at me until I wrote it. And then it was going to be short, and it turned into a 11,000-word fic. 
> 
> Timeline note: this takes place a few months after DD S03, by which point I posit that Nelson, Murdock & Page would have moved out of Nelson's Meats into a proper office. In the BtVS universe, it takes place around now, assuming that Buffy would be coming up for about 40 based on the date the show started. I haven't read any of the BtVS comics, but did a bit of internet research, and all I could really grasp from that is that Everyone Lives Somehow. So I'm waving a vague hand at BtVS canon and in this 'verse the grown-up Scooby Gang are headquartered in London and Angel is doing his thing in LA post-Apocalypse.

There’s a line. There’s always a line at JFK, and everyone is blithely ignoring the “No Cell Phones” sign and are occupying the wait time texting, browsing, calling.

Buffy has her phone out like everyone else, and is messaging Willow.

 _Stuck in immigration_ , she types, and adds an angry face emoji.

 _How was flight?_ asks Willow.

 _Meh_ , says Buffy, shuffling five paces up the line. _Any more intel on those vamps?_ she queries.

 _Sightings mostly around Calvary Cemetery still_ , Willow messages, _but intermittent in Manhattan._

 _Great. Will keep you updated_ , Buffy texts, and puts her phone away as she reaches the head of the line.

She hates New York. She’s never been one for big cities – although London is all right, and LA will always have a piece of her heart – but she’s never got why people rave about the Big Apple. It’s too blocky, and dirty; too cold in the winter and hot in the summer. But a particularly bad rash of vampires has arisen, there’s nobody else free who can handle it, and so here she is, veteran Slayer hurtling rapidly towards the big 40 with a pile of stakes in her checked luggage.

That takes ages to come too, and Buffy is in a foul mood when she finally emerges into the crisp November air and finds a cab to take her to her hotel, which turns out to be on the edge of Midtown and therefore miles away from the cemetery.

She checks in, showers, changes, and tools up. It’s almost dark and it’s time to vent some of her flight frustration on some hapless fledglings.

Six hours later, her tally for the night is 16 – one of the best for some years – and she is back in Midtown, but way too amped up to sleep. Instead, she goes for a walk, letting her feet take her wherever they want to go.

They take her straight into a mugging. A skinny guy, in nice clothes, is being beaten up by a much burlier guy in less nice clothes. Buffy sighs to herself, and wades in.

“Hey. Hey!”

The mugger pauses in thumping the skinny guy. “Yeah?”

“Pick on someone your own size,” Buffy suggests.

The mugg-ee takes advantage of the pause and legs it. Deprived of his victim, the mugger pulls his arm back to punch Buffy. She lays him out with a single kick and leaves him.

On her way back to the hotel she has a nagging feeling that she’s being watched, but the jet lag has kicked in and she cannot be bothered to worry about it.

Buffy sleeps in the following day, orders room service for lunch, and spends the afternoon checking in with London. She grabs some pizza for dinner – one of the good things about New York, she reflects, during the second slice – and heads back to the cemetery.

Things are quieter this evening, but she’s still buzzed when she gets back to Manhattan. This time, Buffy heads for a bar and settles for a beer while updating Willow on action, even though she knows nobody will pick up in London for a few hours.

Leaving the bar an hour or so later, two beers in, she feels the hairs on the back of her neck stand up in an all-too familiar way. It takes her a few moments to identify the vamp – a middle-aged man, who had probably been some innocent shopkeeper in life, but in death was scruffy and pallid and trailing a girl down the street. Buffy sets out to follow.

The girl and the vampire head off down a darker street, the girl unaware with headphones in. The vampire picks up his pace. Buffy picks up hers, preparing to close in as the girl is grabbed and the vampire’s true features emerge.

It’s not as easy a kill as she’d expected – the vampire proves to be stronger than he looks, and as the girl stands and screams Buffy finds herself slammed against the wall, and hit with a dustbin lid, before she manages to slam her stake home.

She’s about to do the usual “don’t worry, it’s fine, go home” routine with the girl when her stake is sent spinning out of her hand and there is another figure in the alleyway. Buffy doesn’t have time to think; she blocks a punch, ducks a kick and lands a blow of her own.

“Hey!” she manages to puff out. “What the hell?” She skittles back a few steps, out of attacking range, and holds up her hands. The girl has, sensibly, fled.

Her attacker is poised for another punch. All she can see is that he’s a little taller than she is, dressed from head to toe in black – including a mask covering the top half of his head. She’s not reading vampire off him.

“You were attacking that girl,” the man growls out.

“I was not!” Buffy retorts, offended. “I was saving her life.”

“There was nobody else here,” says the man.

“There was. Until I killed it,” Buffy retorts.

“I didn’t hear anyone else.”

“Then you’re deaf.”

The man laughs. “I’m really not.”

“There was a vampire here,” Buffy says, patiently. “He was attacking that girl. I killed it. She ran away. Now I’d like to go home, unless you plan on punching me again.”

Her assailant lowers his fists. “A vampire?” he says, sounding deeply sceptical.

“They exist. I kill them.” Buffy looks around, finds her stake, and retrieves it.

“You mean as in dead things walking, drinking blood?” the man asks.

“Exactly as in dead things walking and drinking blood,” Buffy confirms. “I’m Buffy. The vampire slayer. Well, one of them. The original one.”

The man tilts his head on the side. “You’ve not been around here before, not until last night. You knocked out a mugger last night.”

“I _knew_ someone was watching me!” Buffy says. “Who the hell are you, the neighbourhood stalker?”

“Usual term’s vigilante,” says the man, with a quirk of his lips. “Papers call me Daredevil.”

“And you call you?”

“Daredevil will do,” the man says. “This is my city.”

“Whole of New York?” Buffy asks, genuinely interested.

“Mostly Hell’s Kitchen.”

“And you, what, keep crime down?”

“I try,” says her one-time attacker. “These vampires, are there more of them?”

“Whole heap out at Calvary,” says Buffy, “but they seem to be spreading.” She eyes the guy thoughtfully. “Don’t suppose you fancy helping me stamp out the infestation? You could be useful.”

He considers the proposal, and after a moment, nods. “If it helps keep people safe. And you out of my city. Sure.”

“Great.” Buffy holds her hand out, and he takes it after a long moment’s pause. “Buffy Summers. I’m not calling you Daredevil.”

“… Mike,” he says, and she has the distinct impression he’s lying.

They arrange to meet the following night at her hotel. He tells her he will not be wearing the mask, but he’ll know her when he sees her. There’s an odd smile on his face when he says that, but Buffy lets it go. She’s weirdly glad to have an ally, even if it’s a strange vigilante ally in black.

“Nice to meet you,” Mike says, and then he’s gone, scaling a fire escape rapidly and impressively.

Buffy tucks her stake into her waistband and thoughtfully walks back to the hotel.

She spends much of the following day researching Daredevil. There’s plenty about him on the internet and some videos of him fighting various criminals, always with devastating effect for the criminals. He looks like a useful ally and an unpleasant rival and she’s glad that somehow she managed to get him onside.

Just before the appointed time of their meeting she’s down in the lobby of the hotel, carrying a backpack with some extra stakes and Holy Water, just in case. She’s not sure who she’s looking for, but she’s certainly not expecting the man who approaches her shortly after the time agreed. The jeans and boots look vaguely familiar, but he’s wearing a leather jacket over the black top and a pair of unusual, slightly affected red shades. And he’s carrying, and using, a white cane.

Buffy boggles.

He comes straight up to her, pauses, and then says, “Buffy. Mike.”

“You’re …”

“Yeah.”

But the voice is the same, there is no mistaking it.

Buffy picks up her bag, says, “okay, then,” and leads the way out to the front of the hotel where they hail a cab.

In the cab she can’t stop studying him, and he seems to be aware of her attention.

“Go on, ask it,” he says, in a tone of weariness. Buffy wonders if he’s perhaps psychic or something, but asks the obvious question he’s clearly waiting for.

“Are you really blind?”

“I’m really blind.” He takes off the glasses and lets her peer at his face more closely, at the unfocused brown eyes, and then slips them back on again. “No light perception. Since I was nine.”

“That’s. Wow. But you can still fight?” Buffy asks, lowering her voice for the benefit of the cab driver.

“Yeah. Tell you more later,” he says.

They sit in silence for the rest of the trip. Buffy is itching to get out her phone and message Willow but has a feeling ‘Mike’ might notice, so heroically refrains.

They pay off the cab at the entrance to the cemetery and Buffy watches it go. Her companion folds up his cane with swift, economical motions as soon as it’s out of sight, takes off the glasses and puts on the mask he was wearing the previous night.

Buffy opens her backpack and extracts a couple of stakes, which Mike accepts and stows in his waistband.

“What am I looking for?” he asks.

She wonders about the choice of verb, but decides against comment. “We’re not sure what’s behind it, but there’s been this rash of newly-made vamps in New York recently. Highest concentration here. Easiest to get them when they’re just rising. You need to stake them in the heart.”

“But they don’t have a pulse, right?” he queries.

“They’re dead. We’re just making sure they stay that way.”

He’s silent for a moment, and then says, “I hope I’m not going to be useless here. You see, the way I fight is largely through hearing heartbeats, breath, movement. Might be tricky if there’s no pulse to follow.”

Buffy feels like pointing out that this would have been useful to know beforehand. Instead, she says, “They’re not usually quiet when rising. Follow my lead.”

She heads into the cemetery, Mike a step behind, but walking like he knows where he’s going. At the first new grave she finds, Buffy halts; it’s as good a place to wait as any. Mike leans on a gravestone next to her. “Fresh soil,” he says. “So, you been doing this long?”

“Slaying?” Buffy sighs, and twirls her stake in her fingers. “Too long. Since I was 16.”

He turns his head in her direction. “I can’t get a feel for how old you are now. That could be four years, or 20.”

“More like 20 and change,” Buffy says. “How long have you been vigilante-ing? Is that even a word?”

He laughs. It’s a good laugh, and his smile is warm. “It’ll do. A few years. Properly. Was taught to fight when I was about 10.”

“Shit, that’s way too young,” she says, with feeling. He shrugs.

“It’s fine. It helped at a bad time.” He stops talking, holds up his hand. “Something’s … something’s just broken through down there. I can hear it scrabbling up through the soil.”

“You can hear it from here?” Buffy asks, amazed. “That’s some hearing. Want to do the honours?”

Mike smiles again, but this time it is a fierce grin under the mask. “Sure.”

She steps back, and he steps forward, taking one of the stakes from his waistband and holding it in a practised grip which makes it look like he’s been doing this for years. His attention is all on the disturbed ground before him.

Buffy is ready to step in if things go wrong, but she’s also prepared to watch and see what happens. And it’s impressive. The vampire’s hands appear first, pushing earth out of the way, and as soon as both are visible and the head is emerging from the grave Mike grabs the right hand, hauls the vampire all the way out, and finds the heart with a single blow. Then he’s coughing from the dust and the tally is one-nil to them.

“You made that look easy,” Buffy says.

“Beginner’s luck,” says Mike, brushing dust from his clothes. Buffy picks up her backpack and starts walking on. “Quite a lot of fights, it’s helpful to use the other person’s hand as a guide for where to hit,” he explains, coming up by her side. “Figured that was the best way here.”

As the night goes on, Buffy has to admit he’s a useful asset. There are a couple more easy kills, but when two rise at once and decide to team up against them it’s helpful to have another fighter alongside. After they’ve dispatched the duo, Mike explains he’s been using her body as a guide, together with the sound of the vamps’ clothes and feet against the ground. His skills are easily a match for hers and Buffy reflects that it’s been a while since she fought alongside a true equal.

They call it a night after the tenth vampire dies. Mike, tentatively, suggests a drink, and Buffy agrees. She doesn’t think he’s flirting with her, particularly, and she’s enjoying his company.

He directs the cab to stop outside a lively, cheap-looking bar and pays for it before Buffy can say anything. “First drinks are on me,” she says, in response.

They settle into a booth with their drinks – he’s on whisky, Buffy’s gone for beer again.

“That was great, tonight,” Buffy says, raising her glass to his. “You’re a natural.”

“I feel like I should feel, more,” Mike returns. “When I started all this, I promised myself I wouldn’t kill, and yet tonight, I killed, and I don’t feel bad about it. Weird, maybe … not bad.”

“They’re already dead, that’s why. It’s not like you’re killing a human being,” Buffy says, leaning across the table so they can speak quietly. “Trust me, there’s a difference. Vampires like that, they’re soulless. Literally all a newly-risen vamp wants to do is feed and kill. So really you were saving a bunch of lives tonight.”

“Good to know,” Mike says. “I’ll leave it out of my next confession then.”

Buffy laughs, and stops when she sees his face. “Oh my God, you’re not kidding, are you? You’re actually Catholic?”

“Raised in a Catholic orphanage, by nuns. Hard not to be.”

“What _was_ your childhood?” she asks. Mike shrugs.

“I got through it.” He swallows a gulp of whisky, and changes the subject. “Are you trying to identify the source of this problem you have? Or are you just here to get rid of as many as possible?”

“Got a team, back in London, working on it,” Buffy says, “but we haven’t got very far.”

“So if you can’t identify what’s causing all these people to turn into vampires – how does that work, anyway? – what, you go home and leave it unsettled?”

“I’m booked on a flight at the end of the week.”

Mike looks thoughtful, and feels in a pocket of his jacket, after a moment bringing out a business card, which he holds on to.

“I think I can help you,” he says, “but I need to be able to trust you to do that. I need what I do in the evenings, and how I do it, to stay secret. Will you promise to keep it to yourself? Not to tell your team, your friends, anyone?”

Buffy looks at him. He’s pretty much staring at her behind the red glasses, although not quite, and he looks deadly serious. “I promise,” she says, and after a moment he nods.

“Thanks.” He proffers the business card, and she takes it.

 _Nelson, Murdock & Page_, it reads at the top, then _Attorneys-at-Law and Private Investigation_. Below this, it says _Matthew Murdock, Partner_ , and then there’s an address, telephone number and email address. There is also a line of Braille dots along the bottom of the card.

“Not Mike, then,” Buffy works out.

“It’s my middle name,” her companion says with a twitch of a smile. “My colleague is an investigator. Good one too. I think she could help you. Come over tomorrow.”

“She knows you do …” Buffy waves a hand.

Mike – no, Matthew – nods. “As does my other business partner. They don’t particularly approve, but they know.”

“And they’ll accept vampires?” The offer sounds too good to be true, and Buffy’s natural mode after so many years of fighting is one of distrust.

“We live in New York,” he says. “We’ve seen aliens, we’ve fought off ninjas, my own ex-girlfriend was brought back from the dead – not a vampire – and I know someone who claims he killed a dragon.”

“Did he?”

“Maybe. Vampires almost make sense. The world’s a bit crazy these days, you know.”

Buffy raises her glass to that.

He tells her to call him Matt, not Matthew, and they share small, unimportant pieces of information about their lives until the drinks are done and Buffy declares it’s time to sleep. Matt doesn’t offer to walk her to her hotel, and she doesn’t offer to accompany him to wherever he lives, and she feels that they understand each other pretty well.

In the morning she calls Willow, and gives her a rundown of the night, while managing to keep her promise about not revealing Daredevil’s identity. Buffy feels bad about the half-truths she has to spin to do so – she tells Willow that Daredevil has put her in touch with a private investigator – but she has an uncomfortable feeling too that if she breaks her promise to Matthew Murdock, he will know.

Her friend is fascinated by the concept of a vigilante, but perhaps even more enthused by the possibility of a breakthrough in their quest to find out what was causing the rash of vampires in New York.

“I’ll keep you updated,” Buffy promises.

Nelson, Murdock & Page work out of a small upstairs office in the middle of Hell’s Kitchen. The sign on the door looks new, but when Buffy pushes it open and enters it’s clear most of the furnishings aren’t. There’s no reception, just a couple of chairs in a sort of waiting area, but the three doors off this space are all half-open and Matt appears before she’s had the chance to make herself known.

Away from the night he’s dressed like a lawyer in a suit and tie. It’s a look which suits him, and Buffy takes a moment to appreciate this. He smiles, and she automatically smiles back, then wonders if he can tell.

“Glad you came,” he says, and at his voice his colleagues pop out of their offices too. She finds herself shaking hands with a cheerful, slightly plump man in a slightly smarter suit than Matt’s, and with a tall, willowy woman with long glossy hair and steel in her blue eyes. Buffy likes them both at once.

“Matt said he thought we could help you with some stuff,” the girl, Karen, says. “But he wasn’t very specific.”

If he had a gaze, Buffy thought Matt would be looking at the floor right now, but instead he just looks vaguely sheepish.

“I thought it would be better coming from you,” he says to Buffy.

They sit down in Matt’s office – his partner, Foggy, perching on the edge of the desk – and Buffy tells her story. Foggy and Karen listen quietly and without interruption and she has to give them credit for their acceptance of the concept of vampires into their world.

“You want to work out where they’re coming from?” asks Karen, pausing in scribbling notes on a yellow legal pad.

“And stop it,” Buffy agrees. “There’s clearly an older vamp out there, killing and turning people at will. He or she will have a front, like a proper business, and a place to stay. Warehouses are good. Anywhere without much natural light. But they only started recently, in the last couple of months, so unless it’s a vamp playing the long game they’ve just moved to the city.”

“Or just been, what d’you call it, turned?” Foggy suggests.

“Older than that.” Buffy is sure about this. “Younger vamps struggle with turning newbies. Older ones, not so much. Could be a few decades old, could be more than that.”

Karen leans forward. “How old do they get? I used to love horror novels, when I was a kid, and they always had like these thousand-year old vampires in them.”

Buffy can’t help but find her enthusiasm endearing, although she doesn’t think Karen is all that much younger than she is.

“I’ve met a couple of really old ones,” she says, suppressing a shudder at the thought of the Master, even now. “Mostly, a couple of hundred years is doing well.”

“Okay,” Karen says, “we’re getting off the point. Let’s look at this a different way. You said most of the vampires you’ve … slain … were in Calvary, right? So we start by identifying where they all died.”

“I didn’t exactly keep track of their names,” Buffy admits.

“That’s all right,” Karen says confidently. “I have a friend at the morgue.”

“You have a friend at the morgue?” Foggy asks. “Since when? And why? And who? And why didn’t we know?”

“Since I worked at the _Bulletin_ ,” explains Karen. “He’s called Ed. He has a thing for shoes.”

“Creepy,” Buffy comments. “Will he help?”

“In exchange for shoes, yeah,” Karen says. “You got any sort of budget, because I’m out and the last pair he got off me were my best?”

Buffy nods. “I can run to a pair of shoes, I guess.”

They agree to head straight to the morgue; Karen says her day is pretty quiet anyway. As she gathers her things Matt waits with Buffy in the lobby area. Fiddling with his glasses, he says suddenly, “do you fancy … do you want to come out in Hell’s Kitchen tonight, with me? See what my fight’s like?”

Taken aback, Buffy hesitates a moment.

“If you don’t want to …” Matt adds, his eyes sliding over her shoulder.

“Technically a Slayer isn’t supposed to hurt humans,” Buffy says. “Although I make the occasional exception, like the other night.”

“You could probably argue the human point on a technicality,” Matt says. “I’m strictly a punching criminals type of guy.”

She looks at him, diffident and harmless-looking in his shirt and tie, and thinks it might be interesting to see him in his natural habitat, as it were. He had been pretty good at dusting vampires – how would he be at punching criminals?

“You’re on,” she says, as Karen comes out of her office with her things.

Matt smiles, and Buffy grins back again in automatic response.

They’re three blocks away before Karen mentions it. “You got hit by the Murdock charm, you know that?”

“Sue me,” Buffy says, without rancour. “The guy’s cute.”

“Yeah.” Karen’s agreement is tinged with something regretful. “The guy’s a mess, honestly. I love him, I do – as a friend, I mean – but you don’t know the half of it.”

Buffy shrugs. “I’m used to messy. Anyway, I’m only looking. And, apparently, punching. Are you and he a thing?”

“We were for about five minutes, a long time ago,” says Karen. “Before I found out he was,” she drops her voice, “ _Daredevil_. There was a bunch of stuff he was lying to me and Foggy about, because he thought it was better for us.”

She shrugs. “Anyway, it’s just complicated. Matt’s complicated. But he is good at hitting things, so there’s that.”

They walk in silence for a block or so until they find a shoe shop, and Buffy lets Karen pick out an outrageous pair of sky-blue pumps and pays for them on her business card. At the morgue, Ed takes the shoes with obscene glee and prints out the personal details of the last 100 corpses through the system.

Back at the office, Foggy, Karen and Buffy go through the files. Matt is excused as none of the files are in Braille, and it turns out he really isn’t lying about that aspect of his blindness.

About 60 are easily discarded, due to death by non-vampiric causes. They go through the remaining 40 with care and discard a further seven or eight who died violent deaths. Buffy is pretty sure none of them were death by vampire.

A further 20 of the files are definitely vampire, with the cause of deaths listed as “exsanguination”. Karen pins up a map of Manhattan and begins sticking little red dots on it to tally with the location each body was found. They add blue dots for the last 12 files, where Buffy thinks that vampires were probably involved.

When they’re done, they stand back and look at the map, and Foggy whistles low. “Tell me how nobody’s picked up on this?” he says.

“People are blind,” Buffy replies, automatically, and then remembers where she is. There is a low laugh from behind her.

“I’ve heard it before,” Matt says. “What have we found?”

“About 80 per cent of these deaths are happening right on the edge of the Kitchen,” Foggy says. “Not quite our patch, but close. Down towards 40th and the Lincoln Tunnel. Quite a few near the bus terminal.”

“Makes sense,” says Buffy. “Transient victims are always best.” She snaps a photo of the map. “Right, now what?”

Matt comes up to the map and runs his fingers over the stickers. “40th and what?” he asks.

“9th,” Foggy says. “Mostly.”

“Karen, have a look for recent construction or acquisitions round there,” Matt suggests. “Especially anything siphoned through shell companies.”

Karen starts looking. Foggy heads off to his office to take a client call, and Buffy asks if they mind her calling into London from the conference room.

She messages Willow her picture of the map and then pulls up FaceTime and calls her. Willow already looks excited at the work they’ve done, and is in a bubbly sort of mood. They talk through the research and Willow throws some more ideas out about how they could find the responsible vampire. By the time they end the call, it’s growing dark outside.

“I’m done,” Foggy declares, emerging from his office. “Karen?”

“Also done,” she says, from behind her desk. “I need to go to the records office, and it doesn’t open until 9am. That okay, Buffy?”

“You guys have been amazing,” Buffy says sincerely.

“Nelson, Murdock & Page – being amazing since 2018,” riffs Foggy, with a broad grin. “Right then. I’m meeting Marci for dinner.”

“I have a hot date with a hot bath,” adds Karen. “You two look after each other out there, all right?”

Matt, cane in hand and jacket on, nods. “Promise.”

“Liar,” says Karen.

Matt locks up the office and leads the way out of the building, Buffy close behind him. She tucks into his left side – he’s using the cane with his right hand – and follows him along a couple of blocks, across and down another couple of blocks to a shabby-looking residential building. Inside, they go up several flights of stairs to the top floor and he unlocks a door and stands back to let her pass.

“Please.”

Buffy goes in. The space is large and open and lit from outside by a giant neon billboard. There are no blinds or curtains, which, if she thinks about it, makes sense. She stands and stares at the billboard for a while.

Behind her, Matt has ditched his cane and is pulling clothes from a trunk. “Make yourself at home,” he invites, and disappears into what must be a bedroom, closing the sliding door behind himself.

Buffy prowls the apartment. There’s not much to look at – only one abstract painting on the wall, which is oil and clearly slightly tactile. There are a few books and files on the coffee table, mostly in Braille. She crosses to the kitchen area, and opens the fridge, which is also pretty empty.

Footsteps behind her make her turn; Matt has emerged from his bedroom, now dressed in black and wrapping some thin ropes around his hands.

“Didn’t you have some kind of costume?” Buffy asks.

“You’ve been watching YouTube,” Matt comments. “Yeah. Stuff happened.” He flexes his fingers and puts on his mask. “Foggy said the horns looked stupid.”

Buffy can’t repress her snort. “They were kinda weird. Though the videos are really bad quality.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” Matt turns, and puts a foot on the stairs across the room. “Should have asked. How are you with heights?”

Buffy thinks back, years and years, to standing on the crane staring down at the portal that would take her to her death.

“Buffy?” Matt’s voice is soft.

“I can deal,” she says, because it’s true, she can. The crane, Glory – that was all a very very long time ago. Happened to a different girl.

Matt does that thing again where he pauses a moment before reacting, and then he nods, once, sharply, and heads up the stairs.

His rooftop has a really great view. If she looks south-east, Buffy can see the illuminated spire of the Empire State Building. To the south, there’s the new World Trade Center. Meanwhile Matt is literally perched on the edge of the building, his head tilted to one side, listening. Buffy wonders what he can hear, and then her question is answered as he stands – still on the edge of the building.

“Screams,” he says, tersely. “Ready?”

He does not wait for Buffy to answer, instead leaping from the edge of his rooftop and landing in a neat somersault on the next roof over. Buffy looks over the edge, swallows, and takes a running jump to follow him.

There’s no time to think. Matt is _fast_. He does not hesitate as he navigates a swift path over the roofs – around air conditioning pipes and water cylinders and stairs. Buffy is grateful for her Slayer’s stamina as she follows, stumbling only a couple of times. Before long she too can hear the screams, high-pitched and terrified.

Matt takes them halfway down a fire escape close to the screams and then just drops off it. The screams pause, and then start up again but this time accompanied by the bruising sound of flesh being hit, very hard.

Buffy goes a bit further down the fire escape and uses the ladder to descend the last distance, where she finds two teenage girls whose screams have now turned into deep, heaving sobs. Nearby there’s already two men on the ground, one unconscious and one clutching a knee, and Matt is in the process of dealing rapidly and brutally with the others.

She decides against joining in, and instead goes to check on the girls. All she can get out of them is that they’d been dragged into the alley by the four men, and had tried to fight them off, and failed.

“Call 911,” Buffy says, “tell the police where you are. I don’t think those guys are moving anytime soon.”

As she speaks, Matt delivers an efficient jump kick to the throat of his final victim and all four are down.

“You’re all right?” he asks the girls, his voice notably deeper than usual. They nod.

“That’s good,” Buffy says, for Matt’s benefit. “Cops have been called.”

He nods sharply, and when the sirens sound around the corner, gives Buffy’s shoulder a nudge and leaps nimbly back up the fire escape.

She follows him back up to roof level, where they wait and watch as the police take care of the girls, handcuff the assailants and cart them off to prison or hospital.

“You really don’t need my help,” Buffy observes, looking with slight discomfort at the blood soaking into the ropes covering Matt’s knuckles.

“I might, next one,” he says, his voice back to soft. Below them, the sirens fade, and he relaxes a fraction. “How about we head down towards 40th? There’s usually some drug deals going on under the overpass, and we might stumble across whoever it is you’re looking for?”

Matt takes the rooftops a little slower this time, but she still has to concentrate to keep up with him. He pauses, once or twice, to let her catch up, and they have to drop down to street level where the gap is frankly too wide for either of them to jump. When that happens, Matt takes off the mask and walks along quite as though he can see where he’s going, only little movements of his head betraying that really he’s following all his other senses and not his sight. Buffy absorbs it all, and is again impressed.

At 41st Matt holds up a hand, and goes very still as he listens to the city around him. It only takes a few minutes before he bares his teeth in a grin that somehow reminds Buffy of a vampire about to pounce.

“There’s a couple of the big dealers down there, exchanging goods,” he says. “Want to break it up?”

“Sure. When you say a couple …”

“Oh, each of them have five or six sidekicks,” Matt says, like he relishes the prospect.

The sidekicks turn out to be armed. At least four of them have guns, and the rest knives. Buffy feels like Matt probably knew this, and was testing her in some way, but she’s in the middle of the fight before she can back out and it’s _good_. She’s back-to-back with Matt, who fights fluidly, one punch slipping into a roundhouse kick slipping into an uppercut.

Buffy stops thinking about it and goes with the flow. She gets nicked by one of the knives, but it’s nothing too bad, and she hears Matt grunt as one of their opponents’ fists finds a home in his stomach. Really, though, the fight doesn’t last long at all and neither of them are particularly hurt when the last man goes down. Two of them seem to have run off, but the rest are out cold or badly injured enough to be lying on the floor groaning.

Matt pulls a cheap phone from his pocket and dials, delivering details about the dealers’ location in clipped, terse terms before hanging up.

“He’ll get you for this,” one of the dealers groans out, from the floor. Matt is kneeling by his side in a second.

“Who will?” He picks up the man’s hand and _twists_ , and Buffy winces with the noise it makes. “Name.”

“I don’t know his, aargh, name,” says the guy on the ground. “Honestly I don’t. He turned up maybe three months ago. Gives us the dope. Takes a portion of the cut.”

“Where do we find him?” asks Matt, gripping the dealer’s elbow hard.

“Ow. _Ow_. Shit. Penthouse. New building. Corner of 42nd and Dyer,” groans out the dealer.

Matt knocks the guy out with a swift jab and stands up. “Cops on their way, we should go.”

They stop again a few minutes later and Buffy sits down on a handy ledge with a sigh, feeling the years on her. The fighting she can deal with, but the running and jumping over buildings part of the night is starting to take its toll and she has a new appreciation for Matt’s fitness and the discipline it must take to stay that way while also holding down a day job.

“Tired?” he says with a smirk, and she sticks a finger up at him before remembering he can’t see it.

“Been a busy few days,” she defends herself, and he laughs and sits next to her, taking off the mask and running a hand through his hair. Despite the fact she’s just seen him incapacitate several men and then indulge in a spot of light torture, he looks oddly vulnerable without the mask or his glasses. “What’s next?” she adds.

“Do you think we should see if your vampire ringleader is in the penthouse?” Matt asks. “Or wait, until tomorrow? Normally I’d head straight over but …” he shrugs, “this is your area of expertise.”

Buffy thinks about it. “Tomorrow,” she decides. “I’d rather know what I’m dealing with, and if we get a name I might know who we’re dealing with. Or know someone who knows.”

Matt gets to his feet and puts the mask back on.

“Ready for more of my world, then?” he asks, with that grin again.

It’s 3am before Buffy gets back to her hotel. She has a blossoming black eye and her knuckles are scuffed, in addition to the cut from the knife earlier, and she is weary but exhilarated at the same time. Despite spending her life around powerful people, she’s found herself surprised by just what Matt can do without sight but with the compensation from training and his amped-up senses. Buffy knows she has more raw strength – still – but he’s as fast as she is, if not faster, and just as instinctive. If she’s honest, she hasn’t had as much fun on patrol since the last time Faith visited.

Nelson, Murdock & Page are all in the office when she arrives halfway through the morning, bearing a box of doughnuts. Matt is back to restrained lawyer mode, his smile warm but mild compared to the previous night. Foggy greets Buffy and the doughnuts with glee, and Karen waves some paper at her.

“We’ve got him,” she says, peering into the box. “Is that jelly?”

“Help yourself,” Buffy says. “It’s kind of a tradition with me and my friends. Research party means doughnuts.”

She holds the box out to Matt, who shakes his head and makes a little grimace. “I’ll pass. Thanks.”

Foggy takes another one. “Our Matty has sensitive tastebuds,” he teases. “Which is why he’s also more svelte than me.”

“I work out,” Matt says, but without rancour.

“What have you got?” Buffy puts the box down and goes into Karen’s office to peer over her shoulder.

Karen has a lot. Company records, the sale deed on the penthouse, and a name. Alexander Bruton. It means nothing to Buffy, but Karen has more: an Alexander Bruton had previously owned a small transport company in Massachusetts in the 1960s, before disappearing off the radar. Now the business seemed to be resurrected, and doing quite well, and its owner had been able to splash out on a multi-million dollar Manhattan apartment.

Buffy gets Karen to email her the details, and she forwards the email to Willow and Giles in London, and, after a few moments of hesitation, over to Angel in Los Angeles. She never likes bringing Angel into anything, but she has to admit that when it comes to tracking down vampires, there’s nothing like going to a vampire with a long memory and resources to match.

She doesn’t have to wait long before her phone rings, and she glances at the screen to find out it is Angel calling her back. Buffy does a calculation and works out it’s just the end of Angel’s night in LA. She takes a deep breath, and answers.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” There is a pause at the other end. “How are you?”

“Yeah. Good.” Buffy goes into the conference room and perches on the table. “Erm. You got my email?”

“Yes.” Angel puts the phone down and turns the speaker on; the line goes slightly echoey. There is the tapping of computer keys in the background. “Alexander Bruton. The stuff you sent shows he’s been off the human radar the past few decades, but he’s been building underworld contacts in that time. Has a reputation for being particularly brutal and he really likes turning his victims.”

“That’s it,” Buffy says. “We’ve found about 20 in the last few weeks.”

“Overkill,” comments Angel, disdain in his tone, “but very much his way of working. I’ve got nothing on what he wants …”

“He’s dealing drugs,” she says. “Money, I guess.”

Angel takes the speaker off and puts the phone back to his ear. “If you’re going after him, Buffy, be careful.”

“Always careful,” Buffy says, casually.

“I mean it. Don’t … don’t do anything stupid?”

“I’ve got backup,” she replies. “Good backup. We’ll be fine. You don’t need to worry about me anymore, I’ve told you a hundred times.”

He makes a noise in his throat. “And I’ll tell you a hundred times more to be careful. You know that.”

“Yeah.” She slides off the edge of the table. “Okay, I gotta go, Angel. Thanks. For calling.”

“Any time.”

There is the usual small pause of words left unspoken, and Buffy hangs up first.

Karen sticks her head in the room. “I’m going to grab some lunch. Fancy coming?”

Buffy shakes off the call, and makes a show of looking at her watch. “Is it lunchtime already?”

They take orders for Foggy and Matt, although Karen tells Foggy that after three doughnuts he shouldn’t really be hungry, and head out. Although the ‘boys’, as Karen calls them, affection in her voice, have ordered she suggests they go for ramen at a nearby restaurant first and Buffy’s happy to agree.

It doesn’t take long to order, and Karen leans across the table. “How was it, last night?” she asks.

“Matt didn’t say?”

“We try not to talk about his extra-curricular activities, unless we have to,” Karen admits. “It makes Foggy angry, and then Matt gets sad, and I can’t deal with either of them.”

“It was good,” Buffy says. “I mean – have you seen the guy fight?”

“Couple of times. He saved my life,” Karen explains. “Before I knew he was Matt.”

Two large bowls of ramen arrive, and Buffy digs in with her chopsticks, suddenly ravenous. “It’s pretty cool to watch,” she observes, after slurping down a mouthful of chicken and noodles. But it’s like he’s a different person, when he’s being …” she waves the chopsticks in the air.

“Mostly I’d like him to just be Matt,” Karen says. “He’s much more relaxing to be around. But we’re in a good place right now, really, so I’m not going to spoil it.” She wipes her chin. “Enough of Murdock. What’s it like living in London?”

The topic change gets them through lunch, and through the stop at a deli to get Foggy and Matt their food. By the time they return to the office, Buffy feels like she’s made a new friend. Karen is bright, and capable, and occasionally funny, and generally a good person.

Back at the office they make plans for an infiltration of the penthouse, before dusk, to catch Bruton at home. Buffy leaves Matt and his colleagues to their normal jobs and goes back to her hotel to rest, change, and whittle a few more stakes.

She meets Matt, as arranged, back at the office at four o’clock, a large bottle of water in hand and carrying a backpack of smaller glass ones.

“Are you sure about this?” Matt asks, as he leads the way out of the building. He has his hand on her elbow and to most people Buffy thinks it would look like she was guiding him, instead of the other way around; he gives her a nudge to turn her to her left. “I mean, does it really work?”

“I thought you were Catholic,” Buffy throws back. “Yeah, it works. Are you sure your priest will help?”

“Actually,” Matt says, sounding slightly nervous, “I’m not asking my priest to do this. My old priest would have helped, but the new one is … new. I don’t know him that well yet.”

“So who’re we asking?” Buffy queries. “It’s, like, got to be an actual holy person.”

“My mother.”

They walk a few more paces before Buffy feels able to respond. “I’m sorry?”

“My mother,” Matt repeats. “She’s, erm, a nun.”

“Did she forget about the vow of chastity?” asks Buffy, before belatedly realising that this question is maybe inappropriate. “Sorry. I mean, your mom?”

By the time they’ve reached the convent, Buffy has a little more understanding of the situation and is able to act at least relatively normally when Matt introduces her to a woman full of personality. She’s about the same height as Buffy and meets her gaze directly; it softens a little when she looks at Matt.

They go into a quiet room and Matt explains the request.

“Matthew, I’ve lied to the police for you and bandaged your wounds,” Sister Maggie says, “but this might be quite the oddest thing you’ve asked.”

“It would be really helpful,” Buffy interjects. “Super-helpful. You just need to say a blessing over this,” she points at the bottle of water, on a table by her side, “and then we’re done.”

“Do I want to know why?” Sister Maggie asks Matt, and he fidgets under her gaze quite as though he can see her.

“Better not,” he says, “but it’s for the good of the city.”

The nun sighs, and stands up, and holds her hand over the water while saying a simple blessing. Matt puts his head on one side at it, and frowns. “It’s no different.”

“It’s not like you can hear it change,” Buffy says. “It’s mystical. Look, I don’t get it either, but trust me, we need this.” She puts the bottle back in her bag. “Thanks, Sister.”

“Any friend of Matthew’s is a friend of mine,” Sister Maggie says. “Especially if you can stop him hurting himself. Again.”

Buffy holds out her hand and the sister clasps it. “I’ll try,” Buffy promises.

“Look after yourself, Matthew,” Sister Maggie adds, laying a hand briefly on her son’s arm.

He nods his head, but they do not hug or kiss.

She wonders about the relationship on the way to Matt’s apartment, and resolves to ask Karen if she gets a chance. Buffy gets the feeling Matt would rather not say more than he’s already said about his mother.

While he changes, Buffy fills up the little bottles from her big one, and puts as many as she can in her pockets.  The rest go into Matt’s pockets along with a couple of stakes, although he complains he can hear the water sloshing and the bottles clinking against each other as he walks.

“And if one of them smashes I’m blaming you,” he adds, as he tugs his mask over his eyes.

They take the rooftop route to the penthouse, although it’s still light. Matt seems to know when to move and when to wait in a corner before crossing alleys or using fire escapes, and they make it unseen.

Karen had hunted down the building’s blueprints from the records office, and they enter through the fire exit after Buffy wrenches off the outside handle. Matt waits while she does so and does not comment on the show of strength.

Inside it’s dark, and she sticks close behind Matt as he heads up the stairs towards the penthouse floor.

At the top of the stairs there’s a fire door, but he halts and holds a hand up while he listens. “Two men in the corridor,” he says. “Armed. Pistols and knives.” He takes a long, deep breath in. “I can smell blood, too, but it’s faint.”

Buffy makes a face, because the thought of being able to smell blood through walls and doors is not a pleasant one. “Stick to the plan?” she asks.

In the darkness, Matt’s Devil grin is a flash of white teeth. “Stick to the plan,” he agrees, and opens the door.

The plan is that she’ll hang back while he handles the human security – after all, Matt has more experience when it comes to fighting people whose weapons are hard-edged metal than she does. But Buffy makes sure she’s close enough to help if needed, and so she’s able to watch as Matt takes down the two guards in what seems like seconds. He uses the momentum from punching the first to execute a tidy backflip which ends in a slicing jab to the second man’s sternum, extracts the gun from its holster and uses that to knock out the first guard. The second guard is already down and moments later he’s unconscious too.

They head along the corridor to the penthouse door – solid, thick wood, Matt informs Buffy after laying a hand on it and listening hard. Buffy shrugs, and knocks.

The door is opened on the chain, and the man behind it is holding another pistol. “Who the hell …” he begins.

Buffy sighs, and kicks the door in. It smashes satisfyingly into the man’s face and he reels, off-balance and off-guard, and they’re in.

The penthouse is stunning. Floor-to-ceiling windows face west and the light pouring into the room is currently sunset gold. The fittings are understated and luxurious and the artwork expensive. She takes it in for the few moments Matt needs to relieve the door-answerer of his gun and kick him out of the door. Nobody else is around.

“Hear anything?” she asks Matt.

“Voices, that way.” He points. “Five heartbeats. Three of them terrified.”

“Vamps?” Buffy has her favourite stake in her hand. It feels warm and comfortable and comforting.

He concentrates. “I can’t tell, sorry. There’s too much other noise.”

It sounds silent to Buffy, but she trusts Matt by now. “Let’s assume vamps,” she says. “Okay. You deal with the humans, I’ll find Bruton.”

It is darker out of the penthouse’s lounge and Buffy follows Matt as he, in turn, follows his senses. He pauses outside a door. “Three in there, chained to the wall,” he hisses. “Two next door, watching a movie. I guess they’re the relief for the guys in the corridor.”

There are more doors ahead of them and Buffy sends her own senses out, straining for that moment when the hairs stand up on the back of her neck and she knows there’s a vampire about. She creeps past Matt and the two doors he’s indicated and tries the next one – it’s open, and it’s an empty bathroom. Next along, the door is locked.

“I’m breaking in here,” she murmurs, knowing Matt will hear her. “You sort the movie fans while I make noise this way? Ready? One, two, three.”

She kicks at the door and it gives. Back down the corridor there’s shriek and a crash from the other room, but there’s no time to wonder about what Matt’s doing because she’s broken into a room with two beds, both occupied by vampires who have sat up and vamped out at her arrival.

Buffy dusts them in short order, and moves on.

Three bedrooms in and her tally is five for the night, but all have been easy and the bedrooms small and simple. Buffy is about to move on to the next room when she hears soft footsteps behind her; she whirls, lifting her stake, but it’s only Matt.

“Got the three being held captive out,” he says softly. “They were in a pretty bad state.”

“Well now, that’s a shame,” cuts in a voice from behind Buffy, and she spins back in the other direction. “They were my dinner.”

The man speaking – no, she corrects herself, the vampire speaking – is tall, suave, dressed in a nice suit and tie. The sort of man who you might look at twice to admire his clothes, but who would otherwise pass as an ordinary wealthy businessman.

“Alexander Bruton?” she guesses.

“You’re the Slayer who’s been getting in the way of my fledglings,” he says. “A bit old, aren’t you, for this? Have they run out of teenage girls?” His eyes slide to behind Buffy. “And the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. Well, well, well … I am honoured.”

“You _are_ honoured,” Buffy snaps out. “Buffy Summers.”

He bares his teeth, still human. “ _The_ Slayer. Indeed. What a pleasure.”

She twirls the stake. Another four vampires – these ones fully vamped out – have appeared behind Bruton, and Buffy knows there’s not much point prolonging the inevitable.

“Are you and your four goons back there going to stand and exchange pleasantries with me and the Devil for ever, or are we just going to fight?” she asks. “You’ve been killing way too many people, Bruton. I’m not happy. He,” she gestures at Matt, “is definitely not happy, because it’s Hell’s Kitchen people you’ve been killing. There’s only one way this ends, and it’s with a big pile of dust.”

“You talk too much,” Bruton snarls.

“It’s been said,” Buffy agrees, and launches into the attack. She hopes her comment about the four goons is enough for Matt to back her up.

Bruton steps back and lets the minions go first. Buffy dusts one of them with her first lunge but the second proves trickier, having clearly had some sort of martial arts experience in life. She reaches in a pocket and brings her fist up wrapped around one of the bottles of Holy Water, hoping that Matt’s mother’s blessing had been enough. It smashes on the vampire’s nose and he immediately throws up his hands, wailing in agony.

Score one for Sister Maggie, Buffy thinks, and stakes him.

She risks a glance at Matt, just as he slams his vampire into the wall, holds it by the throat and follows through with the stake.

Bruton, down to a single goon, vamps out with a roar and rushes Buffy. She sidesteps, swivels and is into the fight. Unlike the minions, Bruton can fight, his suit and general demeanour of businessman belying the brutality Angel had warned her of. Buffy stops worrying about Matt and focuses on her own battle.

It’s not pretty. Bruton uses his entire body – fists, feet, nails and teeth – and he hits hard. It takes Buffy a minute or two to gauge where she needs to pitch the fight, and by that time he’s landed several blows and her ribs are aching. But his viciousness is the key she needs. She stays calm, throws the odd taunt his way, along with more bottles of Holy Water. Only one hits its target, splashing on his hand, but he throws off the blistering and keeps on coming.

She has one stake left. One of the others is somewhere down the hall, and a couple more went up in dust with their victims. It’s out and in her hand and she’s ready to plunge it into Bruton’s heart when a lucky kick of his sends it spinning out of her hand and clattering on to the floor.

Buffy curses, and renews the fight. Bruton has gained the upper hand, for now, but she’s fought and killed worse. She just needs a stake.

She ducks a punch and spins a slicing kick into Bruton’s calves, making him stagger, and it’s then she hears her name.

“Buffy. Catch.”

Automatically she sticks her hand out, and feels the comforting smoothness of a stake fall into it. She grins. Bruton does not.

After that, it does not take too long, and she’s standing and brushing dust off her jacket.

Matt is leaning on the wall, almost as though he’s watching her. Maybe, she thinks, tucking the stake away into a pocket, he is, in his own way.

“Thanks,” she says. “I’d kind of forgotten you were there.”

“Thought I’d stay out of it unless you needed me,” Matt says, straightening and coming towards her. “Sounded like you were doing fine.”

“I’ve had easier,” Buffy admits. “You got the other one?”

He nods. “I can’t tell if that’s it, though. There might be more. I think they’d have come out by now, given the noise, but …”

They check out the rest of the penthouse and find no more signs of vampires. Buffy’s pretty sure that some of the vampires sired by Bruton are still out and about, but she can’t check out the entire city and with their sire gone, they’ll fade away.

“Besides,” she says to Matt, as they’re leaving the penthouse, “you know what to do now if you find a vamp.”

“I’ll take a criminal gang any day,” he says. “Those things need way too much focusing. Speaking of …?”

“No. No way. I’m done,” Buffy replies. “I need a drink and a shower, in either order.”

“We both smell of vampire dust,” Matt agrees, wrinkling his nose under the mask.

“It is so gross that you know that,” Buffy points out.

They agree to reconvene in an hour at a bar Matt says he and Foggy go to regularly, and Matt texts Foggy and Karen to invite them along.

After she’s showered and changed into something less vampire dust-y, she sends an email to Willow to let her know of the successful conclusion to the mission. It’s way too late to call England. After a moment’s thought, Buffy picks up her phone and texts Angel, reassuring him she got through the fight with Bruton unscathed. He texts back while she’s still finishing her makeup, but it’s just a short message thanking her for letting him know and saying he’s glad she’s fine.

Buffy finds the bar Matt has told her to go to easily. Foggy and Karen are already there, squashed around a small table with four beers on it. It’s not a large or fancy bar; the bartender looks slightly put out to be there at all and the clientele are a varied mix of young and old, scruffy and fancy. Buffy slides on to a stool next to Karen and decides she rather likes it.

“Welcome to Josie’s,” says Foggy, raising a beer and pushing another across to her. “A Hell’s Kitchen experience.”

Buffy accepts the beer and takes a deep, grateful swallow.

“And well done!” adds Karen, raising her own glass.

“All that research you did was great,” Buffy says. “Really super-helpful. Made it all pretty easy.”

Karen beams. “And Matt’s okay too?” she checks.

“I thought he’d texted you?”

“That does not mean he’s all right,” Foggy says wisely. “Our friend Mr Murdock has a bad habit of telling you he’s fine when really he’s got seven broken ribs, a sprained ankle and probably a bullet wound.”

“I’m fine.” Matt appears silently at their table, cane in hand and red sunglasses on. “Foggy exaggerates,” he adds, to Buffy.

“Foggy does not exaggerate,” Karen confirms.

Matt folds up his cane and puts it on the table before taking the seat next to Foggy and reaching for the spare glass of beer, although Buffy notices that he makes a play of searching for it a little as he does so. “We have both, on occasion, been known to exaggerate,” he concedes. “In this case, I’m not. I’m fine. So’s Buffy.”

“How do you know I’m fine?” Buffy asks, and Matt raises an eyebrow above his glasses.

“You weren’t bleeding, no bones were cracking, and your voice was normal after the fight.”

Buffy looks at him, and shrugs. “Yeah, you got me. I’m fine. Anyway, it was pretty simple in the end. The challenge to this one was finding the guy. Been through worse.”

Matt lifts his glass to that. “Amen,” he says.

“A building collapsed on him,” Karen tells Buffy. “We thought he died.”

“I did die,” she says, and she’s not sure why she admits to it. “Twice. But, you know, I got over it.”

Foggy chokes on his beer and Matt thumps him on the back. “Ow! Matt, that hurts.” He puts the glass down. “No wonder you ran into each other, you’re both equally crazy.”

“Thanks, Fog,” says Matt, drily.

Buffy changes the subject. “So, tell me how you guys met?”

Foggy and Karen look at each other, and she waves a hand. “You first, Foggy.” To Buffy, Karen adds, “he loves telling tales of college.”

Foggy needs no persuading, and launches into a story of college days starring younger versions of Nelson and Murdock. He paints Matt as a shy-yet-charming nerd and himself as the life and soul of the party. Matt mostly listens with a smile on his face, interjecting occasionally and defending himself where necessary.

“And so we left the corporate dream to follow our morals,” Foggy says, “and Karen here was our first client.” He waves a hand at Karen, who, reluctantly at first, picks up the tale. Buffy listens, and asks questions at the right points, and watches Matt. There is more to the tale than Karen is saying, but Buffy doesn’t want to press it.

When Karen stops talking, Matt says, “more beer?” The question is met with cheerful acceptance by the others, and Buffy gets up to help him carry the glasses.

“Did a building really fall on you?” she asks, while they wait to be served. He grimaces.

“I let a building fall on me,” he says. “It seemed … like the right thing to do, at the time. Did you really die?”

“Yeah.” Buffy leans on the bar, realises she’s leant in something sticky, and moves away from it. “It seemed like the right thing to do too.”

Matt smiles, and then turns a broader one on the bartender, who grumbles at him but serves him with the beer swiftly enough.

Back at the table Matt suggests a game of pool, as the table has become free, and the mood lifts. Buffy is dreadful at pool, despite Giles’s best efforts over the years at teaching her, but it turns out Foggy and Matt are both pretty good. Foggy suggests a team match of what he describes as the “normals” against the “crazy ninja types”.

“Winner buys lunch tomorrow,” he says, and Matt sticks out a hand.

“You’re on,” he says.

Matt and Buffy win, by some considerable margin, largely because Matt is shameless about using all his skills to do so, and because Foggy and Karen are more drunk. They have more beer, and more shots, and collectively stagger out of the bar at nearly midnight.

“We’ve got a deposition tomorrow,” Foggy groans, checking his watch. “Nearly today. I move to call this night closed.”

“Carried,” says Karen. She flags down a cab. “When’re you leaving, Buffy?”

“Day after tomorrow,” Buffy replies. “I’ll come by tomorrow, say goodbye when we’re not all hungover.”

“Good idea.” Karen gets into her cab and Foggy flags down a following one.

Buffy turns to Matt. “You’re okay walking home?” she queries. “After drinking, I mean?”

He nods. “It’s not far and I know how many blocks it is. Should be fine.” He sets the tip of his cane in front of him. “See you tomorrow, Buffy.”

She watches him go – a little more careful than what she’s come to think of as the way Matt Murdock normally moves around, but steady enough given the alcohol in his system.

The next day Buffy sleeps in and treats herself to room service breakfast before making a proper report into London. On her way to Nelson, Murdock & Page she stops to buy a box of cupcakes and is accordingly greeted on arrival with joy from Foggy.

“They’re from a fancy shop, so even you can eat them,” she tells Matt, who takes one, sniffs it carefully and puts it on his desk.

“I’ll have it later,” he protests, when Foggy harrumphs at him for being picky.

Buffy looks around the little office and feels a funny kind of fondness, although she’s only spent a couple of days here. There is a warm, welcoming atmosphere, admittedly mainly generated by Foggy, and a sense of purpose about the place.

She goes into Karen’s room, and puts the list she’s prepared on the desk. “If you need a hand, with anything,” Buffy says. “If anything weird happens here, that you guys can’t deal with. Willow and Giles are the brains of our operation.”

Karen picks up the paper and scans it. “I mean I hope we don’t get any more weird,” she says, “but thanks. Who’s the LA number?”

Buffy pushes a lock of hair behind her ears. “My ex. A long time ago ex. It’s complicated. Anyway, he runs a sort of investigations law firm too. In LA. He’s good with the crazy. And at least he’s this side of the Atlantic.”

Karen nods, and does not ask any more questions, instead filing the list away inside a contacts book on her desk.

“And you’ve got my number,” Buffy says.

Standing up, Karen gives her a quick, unexpected hug. “Call us too,” she says, “if _you_ need anything. Or just a chat.”

Foggy is waiting in the reception area for his own hug, and afterwards Buffy turns to Matt, in the doorway of his room.

“Thanks,” she says. “For having my back.”

“Thanks for having mine,” Matt says. “It was … I liked the company.”

“Oh, stop being so stoic and hug her already,” sighs Foggy, and Matt does. It’s a firm, brief, but strong embrace and Buffy returns it as firmly. She wonders what Matt can hear from her heartbeat, and hopes it’s the right message.

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” he says, breaking away, and Buffy laughs. She’s seen him in action; she’s not sure there’s much he wouldn’t do.

She doesn’t waste too much more time or energy on the goodbyes, instead giving the three of them a wave and leaving having snagged a cupcake from the box. As she closes the door, she hears Matt say to Foggy, “now, how about that deposition?”

That evening, Buffy goes back to Calvary Cemetery. There’s a chance that more of Bruton’s progeny will be waking up and she’d rather not leave Matt with too many more vampires to fight. It’s odd, but after just a few nights with a companion it seems weird to be alone again. She wields her stake with practised efficiency and clears the cemetery of that night’s newly woken vamps, but the evening lacks the joy of the previous few.

Buffy has a few hours to kill the following day, so goes to Central Park and plays tourist for a bit before picking up her bag and catching the Long Island Rail Road and the Air Train back to JFK. For the first time she can remember, she’s almost sad to be leaving New York. Not sad to go home to her normal, crazy, existence, but sad to leave the city and new friends.

As the plane takes off into the Manhattan sunset Buffy looks down and wonders if Matt is putting on his mask and preparing to go out and do his thing. She kind of hopes so.

**Author's Note:**

> Additional notes: I started this just before going to NYC for a short break, fully expecting that immigration at JFK would be hell. Turns out if you get a morning flight from the UK it's joyously quick. I will now always avoid the evening arrivals! 
> 
> When I was in NYC I wandered through Hell's Kitchen because I'd never been there before, and yeah, because DD. I had a very nice bowl of ramen at Totto Ramen on W52nd, on which I built Karen and Buffy's lunch. However I'm still not sure how Matt would manage to stick exclusively to the rooftops, especially if going east-west, because those avenues - especially 10th - are way too wide to jump over. So I hand-wave that in this fic and I suspect I will in future fics. The show definitely does.


End file.
